Azure exams (revised and updated version)
At the event in September 2018, it was announced that the new exams of the AZ - *** series appeared, and the series 70-53 * went into oblivion.
The description was already here in my earlier article . But since then much has changed and this article includes changes from December 2018, March 2019, April 2019, which are also not included in those articles.
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Appeared exam (AZ-500) and certification for " Azure Security Engineer Associate "
In addition, there were new certificates and exams in the field of work with the data , which also did not fall into earlier articles.
In this article , there will be a list of resources to prepare for delivery by Azure Dev / Infra / Architecture.
The explanations were logical, but the community still has reasons for indignation.
AZ-900 was announced much later than the others, but I think this is the first thing to do. AZ-900 contains all the basic questions on Azure without reference to technical roles (developer / architect / itpro). Examples: what is CAPEX / OPEX, public / private / hybrid cloud, how does billing work, who owns the data, in 2 words you should be able to explain a couple of dozen basic services, what is the difference between public data centers and Azure data centers in Germany / China / US GOV, etc. And at the exit, you can even get a basic certificate.
Finally, there was an exam for people who are still too early to take something serious or not at all, but they need a certificateof responsibility , that they are familiar with the topic. In my humble opinion, this exam must be passed to all managers and vendors who are involved in projects related to Azure . This is such a way to make sure that people understand what they are doing. Technical roles are also not a sin to pass this way at the very beginning of your path to certifications, since The exam covers questions on several dozens of basic services (what it is and why), and at the same time gives general reviews of the platform, which are usually overlooked.
After you have mastered the exam, you can think whether it is worth further “giving up” or not, because Each exam requires serious training.
Initially there were 2 exams (az-100 / az-101), but in March 2019 a similar developmental metamorphosis occurred with the exams, when out of 2 exams there were 1 - Az-103 .
From the time of 70-533, (after the convolution of az-100 / az-101 to az-103) globally, little has changed, although the reason for the emergence of a new exam was because The exam 70-533 was already 3-4 years old, and it was necessary to do a new exam, because knowledge in 2015 and at the end of 2018 are definitely different.
Initially, in September 2018, 2 exams were announced: the exam on basic services - az-200 and the exam on advanced services az-201 . However, on December 29 (2 days before the exits from Beta), Microsoft made a New Year's gift, namely: all 3 AZ-200 / AZ-201 / AZ-202 exams were transferred from beta state to retired state. But the new exam AZ-203 was published in which the wishes of the community were “taken into account” (article in the blog ).
In the AZ-203 exam, Web Apps , SQL Database , Functions , AKS , CosmosDB , Logic Apps , Event Grid , API Management , etc. are asked. I believe that this is the right set of services, reflecting the current state of Azure.
What is now is much better / fresher than what was in the 70-532 exam from 2015 to 2018(And if not for those who passed AZ-200/201/202, everything would be very even not bad.)
There are 2 such exams, for the delivery of both a Solution Architect-ora certificate is issued. In my opinion, donating one without the other is a rather strange idea, since This 2 points of view on the same.
I would not say that there is a one-to-one type mirror correspondence between them. For example, in 301, the word compute in the corresponding section can be implied both azure batch, and aks, and vmss. In this case, in 300 there will be a clear division into 3 different parts (parallel processing, containers, vms).
I see no reason to translate here a list of services that you need to know. you need to know not only services, but also how they are interconnected and when to use what. And also because the list is very long, and the full version is not even on the pages with a description of the exams because The architect must know the subject widely (and the developer is deep).
I repeat: I recommend taking both exams and preparing for them in parallel .
AZ-400 Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions is focused on a very wide range of issues. The exam requires, on the one hand, understanding processes and methodologies (working with a work item, planning, etc.), and on the other hand, knowing how to manage project dependencies, how to compile code, publish, how to use external utilities to analyze the code, how to get feedback from the user through Tula, etc.
To get an Azure DevOps Engineer Expert Certificate, you must first obtain a certificate for development or administration .
The Az-500 is an exam that came out in April 2019 and it follows the direction that Microsoft does the certifications and exams that meet the roles that can be in the Cloud.
Some questions from Az-102 related to Azure Active Directory Security such as just in time access, etc. moved to it. On the other hand, there were things related to the daily work with AAD for example: managing users, creating OAuth applications, transferring subscriptions to another owner. And besides, setting up a collection of security logs (clicking the enable checkbox on many different servros) in Azure Monitor / Log Analytics.
All the above exams were only the first step in the changes.
These exams were created in the era of "Cloud First, Mobile First" , but this era ended in the fall of 2017. Now, Microsoft has come to a new time: " Cloud First, Artificial Intelligent First " .
As a result, we received 4 exams in the beta stage (if we looked at what happened to az-10 * / az-20 *, I would not hurry to pass).
I can not call myself - a great expert in data analysis and even more so artificial intelligence, but my understanding of the difference in exams is as follows:
But this is only my understanding, as a person who is interested, but is not deep in the subject.
The description was already here in my earlier article . But since then much has changed and this article includes changes from December 2018, March 2019, April 2019, which are also not included in those articles.
')
Appeared exam (AZ-500) and certification for " Azure Security Engineer Associate "
In addition, there were new certificates and exams in the field of work with the data , which also did not fall into earlier articles.
In this article , there will be a list of resources to prepare for delivery by Azure Dev / Infra / Architecture.
Who is not interested in the reasons for the changes, skip this sect
I will try to list the key points:
- There was no basic Azure exam (this is especially noticeable for non-technical roles). Previously, you immediately had to pass a fairly difficult exam on infrastructure / design / architecture.
- Now imagine that you have been using Sales for 5 years already, you don’t write code, you don’t pick up a server. To get any valid certification, you have to climb much deeper than you need in your role, and spend much more time, which is not rational. (I now do not take into account certificates issued at one-day or even shorter seminars from Microsoft, because this is not about knowledge, but about the fact of attending the seminar)
- It is impossible to update the exam for the third and third year and pretend that those who passed in 2015 and those who passed in 2018 have the same knowledge on a rapidly changing platform.
- There was an attempt to make an exam 70-535 for the replacement of 70-534 in architecture, but this was not enough.
- It is impossible to “shove” all the questions on infrastructure in one exam , in the other - all on development, and on the third - all on architecture. In Azure 100+ services. Obviously, the exams had to be split.
- Although, from this point Microsoft by March 2019 left. In December 2018, az-200 / az-201 were collapsed into one az-203. Then in March 2019, az-100 / az-101 were collapsed into az-103 . Only the exam on architecture remained in 2 parts, and so far it does not seem to be planning to collapse it.
- Business (as well as developers, administrators, and architects) does not change as quickly as trends (and with them Azure services and Microsoft’s desires) change . Microsoft can at least add new services every day to follow new trends (Blockchain / IoT / Cognitive Services and AI, Quantum computing, etc.), but you don’t use them in your projects and don’t plan to use them, because these services are not needed in the project or are needed, but in another team. As a result, the relevance of the certificate began to fall with each new question on new topics . And this is true not only for traditional companies with a rather slow introduction of innovations, but also for super-innovative start-ups, which also need not everything.
- There were, of course, words about the fact that Microsoft wanted to make certificates that would correspond to real roles (positions for which hr are looking for people). But initially it was stated 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 exam on Azure, which probably were similar to the types of specialists in Azure, but after the collapse, when 1 + 1 + 2 + 1 + 1 (new security) remained, this argument was not very clear .
The explanations were logical, but the community still has reasons for indignation.
Community opinion on issues, if desired, can also be skipped
I will give those that I saw:
Up to this point there was nothing ordinary, since This has happened before. But there were also unique reasons for outrage.
Probably, if both the transitional exams and the beta were free (for those who had already passed before), then no one would be particularly indignant.
But in March 2019, Microsoft finished off the community by saying that the AZ-100 / AZ-101 infrastructure exams published only in September 2019 would be outdated in May 2019 . From this, start to burn in almost all.
- Between 70-535 (replaced by 70-534 at the end of 2017) and the new architecture exams (az-30 *) less than a year passed . Probably, with the replacement of 70-534 (at 70-535) it was no longer possible to pull, because He was 2 years behind reality, but the problems were the same for all 3 exams, and only one was replaced.
- Someone has already started preparing for passing 70-53 * exams , and they were "pleased" that the exams are outdated, you need to restructure your preparation and pass other exams. (In theory, examinations are similar, but the process of passing is different due to the availability of practical laboratory work with a real Azure portal right during the exam, but there were no official courses at the beginning)
- Transitional exams are good, but transitive exams are paid (az- * 02). It turns out that someone could turn in 70-532 and spend $ 165 (in US $ 80 in Russia), and in a month find out that you need to prepare more money.
Up to this point there was nothing ordinary, since This has happened before. But there were also unique reasons for outrage.
- Even the Beta exam versions (az-20 *, az-30 *) are paid (they say that before the beta exams were free, and people were ready to risk waiting a few months and find out if they passed or not, at the same time helping to make the exam better).
- There were voices on the topic: “Could they have done it right away ? AWS had no such problems. ” To this I have nothing to argue.
Probably, if both the transitional exams and the beta were free (for those who had already passed before), then no one would be particularly indignant.
But in March 2019, Microsoft finished off the community by saying that the AZ-100 / AZ-101 infrastructure exams published only in September 2019 would be outdated in May 2019 . From this, start to burn in almost all.
What has changed fundamentally?
- Complete replacement of existing exams with new ones is certainly a significant change, but it did not impress me.
- For architects, there are 2 exams instead of one — this generally makes little difference, because to get an architect certificate, you still need to pass both. Just become more exams.
- Appeared exam on Azure DevOps (ex VSTS, ex VSO) and Azure Security Technologies
- The biggest innovation was the addition of the practical part, where you are given access to the real Azure portal, given a real subscription, an account from which to work and several tasks to be performed. This is really super. exams began to test and practical skills of a person.
- From personal experience of delivery, if you have experience with Azure, the laboratory part makes the delivery easier and not harder. You may not remember right away the right answer to the question, but in the practical part, looking at the environment settings in Azure, you will find it.
Azure for Dummies, or AZ-900
AZ-900 was announced much later than the others, but I think this is the first thing to do. AZ-900 contains all the basic questions on Azure without reference to technical roles (developer / architect / itpro). Examples: what is CAPEX / OPEX, public / private / hybrid cloud, how does billing work, who owns the data, in 2 words you should be able to explain a couple of dozen basic services, what is the difference between public data centers and Azure data centers in Germany / China / US GOV, etc. And at the exit, you can even get a basic certificate.
Finally, there was an exam for people who are still too early to take something serious or not at all, but they need a certificate
After you have mastered the exam, you can think whether it is worth further “giving up” or not, because Each exam requires serious training.
Az-103 Infrastructure (itpro / or trendy devops)
Initially there were 2 exams (az-100 / az-101), but in March 2019 a similar developmental metamorphosis occurred with the exams, when out of 2 exams there were 1 - Az-103 .
The community did not like it very much (read the comments in the announcement for English)
because az-100 / az-101 were created (and were in the release state) in September 2018 and already in March 2019, announced that since May 2019 they are becoming obsolete. And people spent time and money.
The best comment was “Who's managing that stuff? The same guy from Windows Phone department? » ©
It is clear that the certificate, in contrast to the exam, is not out of date and that those who passed the az-101 were promised a change voucher. But the situation with the recall of the exam 7 months after the release is not pleasant.
The best comment was “Who's managing that stuff? The same guy from Windows Phone department? » ©
It is clear that the certificate, in contrast to the exam, is not out of date and that those who passed the az-101 were promised a change voucher. But the situation with the recall of the exam 7 months after the release is not pleasant.
From the time of 70-533, (after the convolution of az-100 / az-101 to az-103) globally, little has changed, although the reason for the emergence of a new exam was because The exam 70-533 was already 3-4 years old, and it was necessary to do a new exam, because knowledge in 2015 and at the end of 2018 are definitely different.
- Almost all questions were taken from Az-100 : about how and what you can do in Azure (create a machine, access resources, subscriptions, resource groups, work with azure active directory objects, networks, etc.). True, several topics were removed by: “Azure AD Identity Protectio and Enterprise State Roaming; configure self-service password reset; implement conditional access policies; manage multiple directories; perform an access review »
- From Az-101 they took only work with “Implement Azure load balancer”, “Monitor and troubleshoot virtual networking”, “Integrate on the premises network with Azure virtual network”, “Managed role based access control (RBAC)”, “Implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) "and slightly expanded the section" Implement and manage hybrid identities "
AZ-203 Development
Initially, in September 2018, 2 exams were announced: the exam on basic services - az-200 and the exam on advanced services az-201 . However, on December 29 (2 days before the exits from Beta), Microsoft made a New Year's gift, namely: all 3 AZ-200 / AZ-201 / AZ-202 exams were transferred from beta state to retired state. But the new exam AZ-203 was published in which the wishes of the community were “taken into account” (article in the blog ).
The community was not quite such a step.
The full version can be read directly in the comments below the article .
For those few who had gone for the exam between September and December, this was a big blow. Eventually:
For those few who had gone for the exam between September and December, this was a big blow. Eventually:
- Those who passed the AZ-200 counted the results and some were enough for a certificate. They say that those who passed only AZ-201 points for a certificate were not enough.
- AZ-202, after disgruntled comments under the announcement, was also counted in a sly way with the 70-532 exam together. Here, Microsoft did not deceive us and some people received an Associate Developer certificate.
In the AZ-203 exam, Web Apps , SQL Database , Functions , AKS , CosmosDB , Logic Apps , Event Grid , API Management , etc. are asked. I believe that this is the right set of services, reflecting the current state of Azure.
What did Az-203 lose relative to az-200 / az-201
It is a pity that questions about Cognitive Services, Bots and IoT were deleted with regard to AZ-201, but there was probably too much content for one exam and decided to donate these topics as the least frequently encountered, although extremely fashionable.
AZ-203 preserved 3 of 8 problems that I noted for AZ-200 / AZ-201
- Why did Batch Services hit the exam? Is it really impossible to live without number crushers (WebJobs / Functions is enough if you don’t need Compute Intensive operations).
- Why do I need Mobile Apps from Microsoft in 2019, I also do not understand. Microsoft lost the fight for its mobile platform, and when you do not have your mobile platform, then the services for its support are not in demand. But they are included in the core exam.
- I really like the instructions for setting up Notification Hub for Android, which sounds like this: “before creating Notification Hub for Android, create a Firebase (which can send notifications to Android / IOS for free)”.
- Claim Based / Role based authorization is a question about Asp.Net Core and stands out from the general number because in the same Node, it is implemented differently, but you need to know the code (Microsoft has been trying to make its services cross-platform in recent years) and is not directly related to Azure.
What is now is much better / fresher than what was in the 70-532 exam from 2015 to 2018
Architecture
There are 2 such exams, for the delivery of both a Solution Architect-ora certificate is issued. In my opinion, donating one without the other is a rather strange idea, since This 2 points of view on the same.
- In the case of az-300 Microsoft Azure Architect Technologies, we go from specific services (azure active directory, azure storage, virtual machines)
- And in the case of az-301 Microsoft Azure Architect Design, we go from the key logic blocks (authorization, storage, compute).
I would not say that there is a one-to-one type mirror correspondence between them. For example, in 301, the word compute in the corresponding section can be implied both azure batch, and aks, and vmss. In this case, in 300 there will be a clear division into 3 different parts (parallel processing, containers, vms).
I see no reason to translate here a list of services that you need to know. you need to know not only services, but also how they are interconnected and when to use what. And also because the list is very long, and the full version is not even on the pages with a description of the exams because The architect must know the subject widely (and the developer is deep).
I repeat: I recommend taking both exams and preparing for them in parallel .
Azure DevOps on Azure Services
AZ-400 Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions is focused on a very wide range of issues. The exam requires, on the one hand, understanding processes and methodologies (working with a work item, planning, etc.), and on the other hand, knowing how to manage project dependencies, how to compile code, publish, how to use external utilities to analyze the code, how to get feedback from the user through Tula, etc.
Personal opinion
Personally, I would make the exam look like AZ-30 * (split into 2 parts: processes & practice / craft part of devops) because it's like the difference between scrum master and devops engineers. But the authors know better.
To get an Azure DevOps Engineer Expert Certificate, you must first obtain a certificate for development or administration .
- If you want certification on Azure / Cloud, then all is well for you. I would recommend first to pass AZ-203, because in it you will get an overview of some Azure services, and already in AZ-400 a whole section on Azure Kubernetes Services, Azure Container Registry, ARM, Azure CLI in the context of publication.
- Well, if you want to give an exam, but publish not in Azure , you still have to familiarize yourself with Azure . You still have no choice, because On December 31, 2018, Microsoft removed all 3 TFS exams from the test and now either the Cloud version or nothing.
Azure Security Engineer
The Az-500 is an exam that came out in April 2019 and it follows the direction that Microsoft does the certifications and exams that meet the roles that can be in the Cloud.
Some questions from Az-102 related to Azure Active Directory Security such as just in time access, etc. moved to it. On the other hand, there were things related to the daily work with AAD for example: managing users, creating OAuth applications, transferring subscriptions to another owner. And besides, setting up a collection of security logs (clicking the enable checkbox on many different servros) in Azure Monitor / Log Analytics.
Personal opinion
Because I have not yet gone to pass this exam and there are no materials for preparation yet, then there are a lot of questions for the exam.
- According to the list of questions, a person should know what logs in which services to include. There are many services, and it is not clear at what level it is necessary to know the services themselves in order to understand what errors and security risks can get there. Just pressing the button is not a problem, but to understand from what it protects and to understand the data that it will give is a completely different level of skill.
- There were a lot of claims for AZ-400 (DevOps) that ijnener should know a lot of external sessions for Azure. Az-500 will be the same. For example: “implement vulnerability management for containers”. In Azure, ACR integration with Aqua should be implied. But Aqua is not an Azure product, it is an external service. Those. Exam, already on external products.
Data Platform Examinations
All the above exams were only the first step in the changes.
- In December, there was a blog announcement that all exams that are closely working with data will be Retired in six months, June 30, 2019.
- And at the very end of January 2019 new exams have already entered the beta .
These exams were created in the era of "Cloud First, Mobile First" , but this era ended in the fall of 2017. Now, Microsoft has come to a new time: " Cloud First, Artificial Intelligent First " .
Microsoft is very much redefining its attitude to the storage and processing of data and all kinds of Artificial Intelligent based services, and this is followed by exams.
- For example, from 2016 (maybe even from 2017) there was the role of Cloud Solution Architect - the person responsible for the growth in consumption of Azure by customers. This role had 2 directions (which then appeared, then merged again): App Platform and Infrastructure (we are not considering O365 now because I am not an expert in this). In 2018, we began to hire DSA - Data Solution Architect . These are the same CSA, only for them are important projects for storing / processing large amounts of data and all sorts of cognitive services, bots, machine learning.
- In addition, one of the reasons for abolishing az-200 / az-201 and replacing them with az-203 was that the questions on bots and cognitive services belong more to the “Data & AI” domain, and not to the development and therefore from the exams for developers removed them.
As a result, we received 4 exams in the beta stage (if we looked at what happened to az-10 * / az-20 *, I would not hurry to pass).
- Designing and Implementing an Azure AI Solution AI-100
- Designing and Implementing a Data Science Solution on Azure DP-100
- Implementing an Azure Data Solution DP-200
- Designing an Azure Data Solution DP-201
I can not call myself - a great expert in data analysis and even more so artificial intelligence, but my understanding of the difference in exams is as follows:
- DP-100 Data Science Solutions - the description of this exam, does not contain questions on Azure. This is more likely a general, methodological exam.
- DP-200 / DP-201 is about storing and processing data in Azure (Azure Data Solution). Which includes both general questions and those specific to SQL Azure, CosmosDB, SQL DWH, etc.
- AI-100 - everything is more or less clear, because AI is not about storage or large volume, but about analysis methods that are based on machine learning (not easy - took a bunch of sources, cleaned, aggregated, merged into DWH)
But this is only my understanding, as a person who is interested, but is not deep in the subject.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/445008/
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